Long-term violence reduction strategies are to be found in the social fabric of our communities and not in our criminal justice system. Our criminal justice system is reactive and is not built to be proactive, i.e., they respond to violence and for the most part do not prevent violence. Prevention plays out in our ability to educate, employ, and assist community members in dealing with issues in their life before they rise to the level of the criminal justice system. By the time the criminal justice system intercedes, victimization has already usually occurred that could have potentially been avoided through the commitment of adequate social and community resources.
Anyone who pays even a minimal amount of attention to the Chicago media is constantly bombarded with evidence of our society’s failures. This week is different in that we have proof of the fallout of a past failure (the shooting of a mentally disturbed homeless man in the loop) mixed with a forecast of what is to come based on decisions currently made by our political leaders (the closing of numerous area mental health clinics).
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